Advice needed on my Martial Arts build.

[Bignerdmatt]

I present to you my Assassin, Jesse_Spano (Im watching Saved by The Bell.... god I hate boring days :P)


Skills:
20 Tiger Strike
20 Dragon claw

Just my bread and butter attack. since ill be using dual claws i figured dragon claw would be a good finisher.

20 Blade Shield

The extra touch to my attack. I run in and start hitting them and the shield adds a little salt to the wounds.

10 Claw Mastery

Get the extra punch to my claws

10 Shadow Master

Always need a friend to tag along :P

20 weapon block

Since ill be using two claws, the def bonus would be welcome.

4 Burst of Speed

the rest in pre-reqs.


As for the stats , the early levels (2-20ish) Ill just use the 2 Str, 2 Dex, 1 vit method to balance it out.

My playing style ? Run in and charge up the tiger strike, let the blade shield chop them up as im charging it then nail them with the dragon claw.


Since this will be my first character back in D2 in a while, feel free to critique it away ! Ive read over some faqs, this seems like a good straightforward build.

Thanks in advance, im off to eat my lazy day meal of sweet tea and cold pizza :D

[Bignerdmatt]

after reading a bit more and messing around with the skill planner....

Would it be a better idea to drop blade shield and max claw mastery and shadow master with the points ?

That would also leave me around 3-4 extra points I would just dump into burst of speed.

This way Im just a fast running, *** whooping blur of clawed death... with a fully maxed shadow master to back me up.


Thanks again :)

[skygoneblue]

This is just a rule of thumb that I use.

I virutally never max out a passive skill unless it is the heart and soul of my build (barbarian weapon mastery, for example). However, I can see why you would max claw mastery for this "barbaric" assassin build.

One thing to think about is your end-game items giving you bonuses. You really will not need to max Weapon Block to get a good block rating. Honestly, I could see maybe ten points if you are looking for a good rating, then let your items give you a few extra points. Looking at it, Weapon Block seriously slopes off after a while, and it is really not worth it to invest any more than 10 points (some would even say 5) when a skill point could be used elsewhere to better benefit another skill.

And one thing to notice, I don't think the Dragon Claw/Tiger Strike trick works, or maybe my Assassin just sucks. I am pretty sure that the damage is only applied to the first claw attack, but I could be wrong. (Honestly, this confuses me too because DC specifically says that both claws get the bonus.)

Good luck dude!

[Bignerdmatt]

Thanks for the advice :)

After seeing the diminishing returns of weapon block and other issues, here is the build im going with.

20 Tiger Strike
20 Dragon Claw
20 Claw Mastery
20 Blade Shield
10 Weapon Block
10 Shadow Master
2 Burst of Speed
8 Pre-Reqs


Im aware that the charge bonus applies to the first claw hit of dragon claw. However I figure if I max claw mastery AND use a good damaging claw in my "off" hand it will more than make up for it IMO.

Since im only using 10 for weapon block to get the 50% chance, I can max Blade Shield to get extra "help". I know it doesnt absorb damage but if It deals it back out.... who can complain ?!

The 10 in shadow master is a bit of a sacrifice, however it still gives me a decent ally....so Im cool with it.

My only complaint is the 2 in Burst of Speed. Who wouldnt want to be a speedy death machine of killing ?!

So I figure Ill find me a +skills to shadow skills somewhere in the Bloody Foothills (I always seemed to find goodies there :P) and Ill be good to go.

Im going to hit the shower and go apply at a few places (Im tired of being poor.... I need beer money) then come home and veg out in front of the TV and play Diablo.

Im on Us_east, the account name is BigNerdMatt. See you all around and thanks again :D

[skygoneblue]

Matt *I'm assuming

To be honest and blunt, without a whole bunch of investments into things like Crushign Blow, Venom, Deadly Strike, etc, Blade Shield is utterly worthless. The damage is poor, and if enemies can get that close to you without being hit by either you or your merc or master, something is wrong.

I would recommend going with something more like this:

20 Dragon Claw

15-20 Claw Mastery
(+skills can boost this too since it is passive)

20 Tiger Strike

15 Shadow Master
(with as little as +2 to skills from equipment, you can cast her at her highest level - 17 (I think that's her highest level.))

5 Weapon Block
(with +skills equipment, this should be more than enough, plus, blocking a lot will make you lag in battles and waste time when you could be hitting enemies)

1 Burst of Speed
(with +skills equipment, you will have way more than enough points in this - also bad diminishing returns on this)

I lso highly recommend at least one point in either Cloak of Shadows or Mind Blast. You will need something to control large crowds. You have a great boss killer right now, but you will get your *** beat down in large groups without some kind of rowd control.

Is this making sense?

[BIGeyedBUG]

You can also pretty well assume that Dragon Claw by itself will do about the same job as charging up TS and releasing with DC. Pick one or the other, and don't waste your points.

I'd be looking for a way to deal with PIs and/or area damage if I were you.

Other than the comment about Crushing Blow (which doesn't work with Bshield) Skygoneblue's advice is good.

Oh, and you can probably do fine with even less points in SM. I aim for level 18 after +skills. Very easy to do.

[skygoneblue]

Yeah, good call there Bug.

Tiger Strike is a great boss killer, and an even greater combo skill with Dragon Tail, but you are right that he would be better suited with just the Dragon Claw.

What about this for him?

20 Dragon Claw (damage and AR)
20 Claw Mastery (damage and AR)
20 Venom (for immunes and huge damage bonus, obviously)
5+ Weapon Block
10-15 Shadow Master (tankzilla)
1+ Burst of Speed
1 Cloak of Shadows (I sneaky ninja *****!)
1 Mind Blast

Dang, this is looking like a cool build! Now I wanna build one! :lol:

Heck, with extra points, you could even drop a couple points into the trap tree to get Blade Fury to use in conjunction with Venom. 400+ damage per blade isn't too shabby! ;)

[Naliworld]

I'm quite doubtful of Venom's ability to kill PIs on its own, especially in multiplayer Hell games(not just 8 players, it starts to have trouble 3 players onwards), since it isn't an AoE attack.

You may want to consider replacing either the maxed CM or DC with a maxed PS, with some of the points in SM(and all remaining points) going into either CoT or FoF as a synergy(I'd aim for 8 natural points in SM. A +2 helm, +2 amulet, two +3 claws will boost you to to slvl 18). PS would allow you to deal AoE damage and kill PIs effectively at the same time.

[jcosterhout]

How is this build for Pvp?

[xanth]

hey....does dc on its own reallly do more than ts/dc? thats just a little hard to believe...but i guess if you can attack a lot of times in a row its possible...anyways, i think that his build was pretty much fine..i would do it something like this..

ts-max
cm-max
dc-max
mb-1
cos-1
mb-1
sm-17 after +skills
wb-8ish
bos-however much u need to reach the breakpoint

there are so few physical immunes in 1.10 now, you dont have to worry much about that (ive seem about 3 since it came out). mb and cos just seem to be great 1 pt wonders for crowd control. While blade shield is a good idea in theroy and looks cool, it doesnt do enough dmg to be a practical skill at all in hell...or even nm